Stoker’s Manuscript by Royce Prouty

It’s a fairly standard conceit to treat Bram Stoker’s classic vampire novel as a chronicle of an actual event, be it a literal chronicle or as a story designed to cover the truth about what really happened. This sort of thing has been a part of literature almost as long as the story has been popular, and it has applied to pretty much all of the other classic monsters as well. That it’s so easy to do that is part of what has allowed these stories to endure. It’s a plot device that never gets old. The only problem is that, much as with other books or movies about Dracula, you have to wade through a couple hundred of them before you find a new one worth your time. Such is the nature of the beast.

This book is told in the first person. The narrator is an orphan. Having grown up in and escaped from the Catholic system that raised him in Romania, he is now a recluse in America, offering his services online as a buyer and seller of rare books and manuscripts. It is in this capacity that he is contacted by an agent representing a Romanian buyer who wishes to remain anonymous. His commission: Bram Stoker’s original manuscript for Dracula, complete with all of the author’s original notes and the unpublished prologue and epilogue. The buyer wants our protagonist not only to verify its authenticity and retrieve it, but to bring it to him personally at Bran Castle, aka the Romanian tourist trap known as “Dracula’s Castle,” the site that inspired Stoker’s novel even though the historical Vlad (and Stoker himself) never laid eyes on it. As our hero learns the contents of these missing chapters, a far larger mystery begins to unfold.

The setup for this is about as straightforward as you could want, but don’t let that fool you. There are a few twists that give it a fresh spin. There’s nothing it in that’ll surprise you, but that doesn’t kill it either. In the telling, it’s less pretentious than Dacre Stoker’s Dracula The Un-Dead and less elegant in its prose than Elizabeth Kostova’s The Historian. It also has a more satisfying ending than either of those two books. As with so many other vampire novels, the author makes his bid to share what “really” happened, to offer his own spin on the “real” rules of vampires, and to explain the undead by scientific means. Results will vary based on your personal dispositions, but if cross your eyes instead of rolling them, the explanations are sound enough to work. Just don’t think about it too much. The end result is a fast, pulpy read, ready-made for offering any classic monster fan a quick fix of fun. And that’s really the name of the game with this one. It’s a 3-star story that’s worth a grin. I’m giving it the extra star just because the writing style is just that good.

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10 thoughts on “Stoker’s Manuscript by Royce Prouty”

Sounds like a lot of fun. Can’t wait to try it. A friend of mine was loaned The Historian. She kept the book for a hundred years and returned it unread. According to her, the book was boring. Normally, we read similar books, which made me think that she might have been too hasty in her judgment. What do you think?

It’s a very slow read. Boring is in the eye of the beholder as I thought the book was still well written. What made me mad about it was that I got through it only to find the ending sucked. I honestly don’t know what people see in it. But I don’t think it was written for horror fans either.

By way of introduction, I am the author of Stoker’s Manuscript. Just wanted to drop you a post of gratitude for selecting my novel and taking the time to read it. I had a great time writing it. Your kind words are greatly appreciated.
Currently working on the next in this vampire series, as well as several others of varying genre.
. . . Royce Prouty

Troy,
A character’s literary arc is critical to formulating growth and change from beginning to end of story. Joseph begins as a reclusive purveyor in something he’s uniquely qualified to do, and ends this first book as a reluctant hero. In crafting the second in the series, his starting point is now a reluctant hero, not the reclusive purveyor, and the events in the sequel push him toward something else.
When I set out to do this novel, I had enough content for at least three books. The key is to find a suitable stopping point . . . for the character to rest . . . and the new starting point to be fresh.
That’s why I chose the background of Joseph– Romanian orphan with holes in his own memory. Gives him a longer, more meaningful arc. There are things in the second and third novels about Joseph’s character that explain his behavior in the first novel, but did not fit in the first. The reader will be able to say, “Now that makes sense” from Stoker’s Manuscript.

Makes perfect sense. It has to tie in somehow. It’s just a question of seeing what that “something else” will be in the next couple of books. He’s definitely got more than enough room to grow and discover.